Tag Archive for: Melbourne Cup

John Velazquez booked for first Melbourne Cup mount

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John Velazquez will add plenty of spice to this year’s Melbourne Cup after it was revealed the Hall of Fame rider will partner Parchment Party, the first American-trained runner to compete in the Flemington showpiece.

There is a strong international challenge amongst the 120 nominations for the ‘race that stops the nation’ but it is Bill Mott’s wide-margin Belmont Gold Cup winner that really shows the global reach of the prestigious contest, with the four-year-old earning his ticket when scoring at Saratoga in June.

Leigh Jordon, the executive general manager of racing for the Victoria Racing Club, spoke of both Velazquez and the international contenders at the release of Melbourne Cup nominations on Tuesday.

He said: “In terms of international horses, we’ve got a really wide representation and probably the widest representation we’ve had for the Cup. We’ve horses from England, Ireland, France, America, Germany and Japan.

“The highlight from the USA is Parchment Party and could he be our first-ever US-trained horse to run in the Melbourne Cup. He won the Grade Two Belmont Gold Cup, which is one of the ‘golden tickets’ into the race.

“He’s trained by Bill Mott who is a Hall of Fame trainer and I’m quite excited to announce that Parchment Party will be ridden by John Velazquez.

“Some of his stats are unbelievable. He’s ridden over 6,700 winners in his career, he is a Hall of Fame jockey and his career earnings are over half a billion US dollars.

“He’s won Kentucky Derbies, he’s won all the Triple Crown races and he’s won over 20 Breeders’ Cup races. He truly is a legend of the sport and it’s great to have him here riding in the Cup on the first Tuesday of November.”

Scandinavia could represent Aidan O'Brien in the Melbourne Cup
Scandinavia could represent Aidan O’Brien in the Melbourne Cup (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Aidan O’Brien missed out on the chance to saddle Jan Brueghel in last year’s Melbourne Cup, but has made three nominations including the mouthwatering prospect of St Leger favourite Scandinavia making the trip to the southern hemisphere later in the autumn.

Mount Kilimanjaro and Aftermath are the other Ballydoyle possibles, while Aidan’s son Joseph O’Brien appears to have leading claims of securing his third victory in the race with stable star Al Riffa, who was subject of a recent big-money transfer to new owners Australian Bloodstock.

Willie Mullins has become a regular visitor to the Spring Carnival and his quest for a first Melbourne Cup success continues with Absurde and Ebor sixth Hipop De Loire.

Meanwhile, former Closutton inmate Vauban is on course to take part in the race once again and is one of three for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, with stablemates Sir Delius and Alalcance both also respected from the home challenge.

Last year’s shock winner Knight’s Choice has the chance to become the first back-to-back winner since Makybe Diva, who famously completed a hat-trick between 2003 and 2005.

Of the other big names searching more success in their country’s most famous race, Ciaron Maher has 13 nominees, including last year’s third Okita Soushi, while multiple Group One scorer Via Sistina is an intriguing name amongst 27 for Chris Waller.

Monday Musings: Down Under

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Last week I made a couple of trips to Newmarket sales where I marvelled at the seemingly never-ending stream of - mainly overseas - buyers keen to pick up second-hand UK and Irish thoroughbreds, writes Tony Stafford. Not just pick them up, but happy to pay handsomely for them.

The Australians set the pace and it was just two days after the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training sale ended with record receipts that the penny finally dropped.

As I waited for the afternoon’s high-class jumping at Ascot and Wetherby and Newmarket’s final day’s action of 2022 with a couple of Listed races, to begin, I had a quick look at the early results.  Two Australian venues had been in operation, Flemington in Melbourne and Rosehill in Sydney as far as the newspaper was concerned – there are umpteen tracks going on Down Under all the time at a lower level of course that we never hear about.

There were results for nine races at Flemington, many of them Group events including two at G1 level, with the Victoria Derby and its first prize of £736k leading the way. The total of winners’ prizes alone, in Racing Post monetary calculation, was an eye-watering £2,360,000 so the total value of the races as the Spring Carnival continued, with the highlight being the Melbourne Cup tomorrow, would have been nearer £5 million.

The Post carried only three results from Rosehill, but the main race of the day, the XXXX Golden Eagle over seven furlongs, carried a full field of 20 runners. It comprised 18 Southern Hemisphere four-year-olds and two Northern Hemisphere three-year-olds having their first runs in Australia and accompanied to ride them by Jamie Spencer and Frankie Dettori.

The winner was a gelding called I Wish I Win (wishes can come true!), trained by Peter Moody, who had bought into the horse after his first three races (no wins) and ridden by Luke Nolen. The jockey, of course, is best known here for his narrow Royal Ascot win on Black Caviar ten years ago when he gave the great mare’s many backers a scare before getting the verdict, and he was again enjoying the best of a desperate finish at Rosehill Gardens.

Second, a nose behind, was the filly Fangirl, trained by Chris Waller and ridden by Hugh Bowman, the team behind the great Winx, who had by all accounts a successful birth recently after some difficult experiences at stud since her retirement from the track.

Talking about Royal Ascot, I had sat next to Waller at lunch a couple of hours before his outstanding sprinter Nature Strip obliterated the opposition in the King’s Stand Stakes on the opening day of the meeting. This was the 21st victory of his then 40-race career. He has won and been third in two more big sprints at home since returning to action this Australian spring.

The difference between victory and defeat has rarely been as stark as in this race, especially considering the cigarette paper thin margin. The winner’s prize was a massive £2,833,333 – second got £1,075,268, not bad but almost £2 million less than the winner! As to how Messrs Spencer and Dettori got on, Jamie will have been content with his sixth place, beaten barely two lengths on the former David Simcock-trained Light Infantry. Sixth prize was £94,086 for the colt now trained by the team of Ciaron Meyer and Englishman David Eustace.

Third to fifth were respectively £537,634, £268,817 and £134,408. Dettori was seventeenth on Welwas, previously with Jean-Claude Rouget in France. He and the trio finishing behind him, still picked up £5,376, more than the winners of the opening two-year-old maidens at Newmarket on Saturday and comfortably more than any of the seven Wolverhampton all-weather contests that evening.

Total money for the one race was a remarkable £5,270,000. The winner got almost half a million quid more than tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup hero, but there are umpteen European connections in the race that stops the nation. I make it that half the horses in the 24-runner line-up have emanated from the UK mostly, France or Ireland, and the favourite at 5/2 is trained by James Ferguson, son of former Godolphin king pin and now agent, John, and in just his third full season with a licence.

Ferguson’s representative is Deauville Legend, winner last time out of the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York. Again, one of only two three-year-olds in the field, he will be trying to emulate the 2018 winner, Cross Counter, trained by Charlie Appleby, who beat Hughie Morrison’s Marmelo after running a close second in the same York race that Deauville Legend won.

One familiar name is the five-year-old gelding Serpentine, two years after his surprise Derby win for Aidan O’Brien and Coolmore. Now a gelding, he ran a good second in a minor prep race at Flemington on Saturday. He carries 3lb less than the favourite!

We mentioned the other three-year-old, Hoo Ya Mal, last week. The Derby second to Desert Crown was sold for £1.2 million at the boutique Kensington Gardens auction on the eve of Royal Ascot. From then until his dispatch to Australia, Hoo Ya Mal was in the care of George Boughey, tasked to handle the colt’s preparation after the sale until his departure.

Occupants of properties in a town with restricted accommodation can be a moving feast. I’m pretty sure though that eight of tomorrow’s field are trained by young men (including Boughey), generally assistant trainers at the time, who shared a house owned in Newmarket by George Scott a few years back.

Boughey, Ed Crisford, Ferguson and the brothers David and Harry Eustace were all at one time common tenants in Scott’s house. Harry Eustace, 22 winners on his card this year on only his second full season, is not involved tomorrow save cheering on his brother, but the others are.

Crisford junior trains, with father Simon, the other long-time former Godolphin mainstay. He, unlike Ferguson senior, still has plenty to say in that operation although none of the father-son duo’s horses are in Godolphin ownership. Their runner, Without A Fight, is a five-year-old gelding, winner of seven of his 17 starts. He is a son of Teofilo, as was Cross Counter.

That takes us to three, but step forward David Eustace, elder son of former dual purpose trainer James. He and his co-trainer, the extravagantly attired Ciaron Maher, have five representatives in the line-up, one more than last year when fourth and sixth places earned £275k for the stable’s owners.

One man determined to be there was Richard Ryan, racing manager for Teme Valley, fresh from the win of Bayside Boy, owned in partnership with Ballylinch Stud, at 33/1 in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day at Ascot.

Requiring to be in Berkshire prevented Ryan’s presence in Australia for Numerian’s prep race in the Caulfield Cup in which he was a close fifth. Numerian, once with Joseph O’Brien, is now in the care of Annabel Neasham, one of the main buyers at last week’s sale. When asked whether she had an owner for one of her expensive acquisitions, she suggested there might be 200 potential owners champing at the bit! I bet some of her counterparts at Newmarket found that hard to take.

After Melbourne, of course, it’s off to the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, far from the favourite venue for my friend Harry Taylor who prefers some Californian heat at Santa Anita. Sorry mate, at least you have the chance to see the astonishing Flightline in the Classic. Baaeed’s fall from grace in the Champion Stakes at Ascot leaves the way clear for a coronation, US style, late on Saturday. It’s being shown on ITV 3 on both Friday and Saturday and will be well worth waiting up for. [The Classic is due off at 9.40pm, so not too late - Ed.]

The American horses trying, in vain most likely, to match Flightline in the Classic are being left to their own devices, and in the other dirt races, too, apart from some Japanese challenges. But in the turf contests they will hard pressed to keep the lid on what looks like a stronger European challenge than for some time. Kinross and Modern Games set a decent standard in the Mile, while Charlie Appleby looks to have a stranglehold on the Turf with Nations Pride and Rebel's Romance heading the market.

I pass on a humorous note about one rider going off to the meeting with an obvious chance. Jason Hart, who rode Safe Voyage at Keeneland in 2020, is pleased to take that experience with him for his ride on the remarkable Highfield Princess in the Turf Sprint. The three-time Group 1 winning five-year-old vies for favouritism with Wesley Ward’s speedball Golden Pal.

Hart won last week at Newcastle on the Wilf Storey-trained Going Underground, delighting owner Herbert Hutchinson in the process. When told Hart would be unable to ride him at Newcastle this Friday night as he was going to the US, Mr H asked can we not claim him? Afraid not Herbert, you’ll have to make do with Kevin Stott!

- TS

Monday Musings: The New Phar Lap?

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A lot of my friends are setting out today for the trip to the beautiful racecourse of Del Mar, just north of La Jolla (and Torrey Pines golf course) in Southern California, close to the wonderful City of San Diego, writes Tony Stafford.  That makes it not too far from the border with Mexico and Tijuana, where locals make their brass selling cheap religious items to unwitting tourists by the roadside.

Some of the above-mentioned pals, not just content with a week where the Turf Meets the Surf – Bing Crosby 1937 – will then tootle down the road to spend a second week at Palm Springs. Nice work? Hardly, if you can get it!

In recent years it has been possible to leave the US right after the two days of Breeders’ Cup excitement onto a flight that crossed the international dateline but arrived in Australia in time for “The Race That Stops the Nation” on the first Tuesday in November.

This time the Melbourne Cup will proceed without some of its usual adherents as it precedes its international counter-attraction. In 2020 it was staged with severe Covid-induced restrictions. Fourteen of the 24 runners started out in Europe, eight – including the winner, Twilight Payment – were still trained there when setting off for the always difficult journey and preparation.

Joseph O’Brien trained the winner and he will be back again, his now eight-year-old Australian-owned marvel this time as top-weight carrying around 9st2lb (58k), 6lb more than last year.

He shares second favouritism with the Andrew Balding-trained Spanish Mission, of whom there were serious doubts as to participation as the new veterinary rules flexed their theoretical muscles. He is safely in the list, but I would imagine the vets will have the same sort of scrutiny right up to the morning of the race that caused Hughie Morrison’s 2018 runner-up Marmelo to be being excluded from the 2019 renewal. Marmelo was strongly fancied having won the Doncaster Cup last time out but the local veterinarians differed with the opinion of the trainer and owners’ vets who consistently pronounced him sound.

Astonishingly, with half the 24-strong field for Tuesday - officially announced with draw yesterday - emanating from Europe, these two will be the sole European-trained contenders. Both have top form this year, Twilight Payment finishing second to Sonnyboyliston in the Irish St Leger and Spanish Mission running a close second to Stradivarius in the Lonsdale Stakes at York in August.

Nothing else is coming. No Aidan O’Brien, whose sadness at losing his 2019 Derby hero Anthony Van Dyck with fatal injury in last year’s contest might have swayed him against sending any of his better-class stayers at the end of an arduous campaign.

Another trainer persuaded by potential queries from the beefed-up vets’ panel to make an early decision against sending his best horse was Charlie Fellowes. His Prince Of Arran, an eight-year-old contemporary of Twilight Payment’s, had been third, second and third again in the last three Melbourne Cups.

The place money amassed from those heroic challenges exceeded £1.5 million towards Prince Of Arran’s career win and place earnings of just over £2 million. In retrospect, the decision, while probably agonising at the time, now looks fortuitous as on all this year’s form the gelding would have struggled to make an impact.

Last Monday when talking about Joseph O’Brien’s latest Australian exploit in winning the Cox Plate, I also referred to the previous winner of that prestigious weight-for-age race. That was the beaten 2019 Investec Derby favourite Sir Dragonet, third at Epsom behind ill-fated Anthony Van Dyck.

The colt had also been a creditable sixth in last year’s Melbourne Cup, just a few days on from his Cox Plate exploits. These excellent performances came from his new base at Warwick Farm, where he ran under the banner of the hirsute Ciaran Maher, one of the most successful of the domestic trainers over there.

At least Maher, who has four of the 24 in tomorrow’s field, has a British element to his stable which has three bases, two satellites apart from Warwick Farm.

Six years ago, a young Englishman, son of a long-standing and much respected Newmarket trainer, like so many before him, tried his luck in the Antipodes. So impressed was Maher in his young pupil’s diligence and innovation that in 2018 he added the name of David Eustace, son of James and brother of Harry who now runs the family stable back home, as joint-trainer.

That means we have an English trainer with four runners in the great race to add to Andrew Balding. Only the legendary Chris Waller, trainer of Winx but yet to win the Cup, matches their representation. Waller is less likely than Maher/Eustace to win as the partners’ Floating Artist (11-1) and Grand Promenade (14-1) are the next pair in the betting.

But this will be a Melbourne Cup with a couple of differences. For me, never getting there – that was always the province of fellow Telegraph man, “Aussie Jim” McGrath -  invariably meant staying up all night to see the show on telly.

On Tuesday when I went to Tatts Horses in Training sale watching the Australians make their ever-more expensive buys for next winter as they jousted with the Saudis for new middle-distance talent, I happened to run into John Berry.

He has been an integral and vital part of Melbourne Cup nights with his encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian and New Zealand form and I asked him if he was all set for Tuesday. A sad look came into that made for radio face – sorry John – as he related that the invitation always comes well in advance. As this October it hadn’t he feared he would, like me, watch it on the sofa.

Unless there was an oversight in the Sky Sports office, Newmarket’s former Mayor seems to have gone the way of so many other Sky staples – the latest being  Jeff Stelling who announced he will be going, too, at the end of the year. Can’t be much fun getting old, can it?

The other big difference of course, unless you haven’t heard of him, is a locally-trained five-year-old called Incentivise who until April 11 this year had the career record of three runs and no places, never mind wins.

He was a 17/1 chance for his fourth race but won that by three lengths and he went on to win another five races, all by wide margins in the next few weeks.

At season’s end it was decided that he needed to be moved to Melbourne as the Covid rules would have been complicated had he remained in his original base in Southern Queensland. He was transferred to top handler Peter Moody whose brief was to campaign him at the Melbourne Spring Festival.

The move also needed a new jockey for the same reason, and the gelding turned up with Brett Prebble at Flemington racecourse on September 11 for the Makybe Diva Stakes. This first Group 1 challenge commemorates Australia’s greatest staying racemare, the only triple winner of the Melbourne Cup. Her hat-trick was achieved between 2003 and 2005.

They made all the running, winning by half a length. Incentivise followed up in another Group 1 on October 2. Two weeks later he achieved what was by common consent from the experts and public alike, the most impressive performance in the Caulfield Cup in living memory.. He won that race by a very easy three lengths and few observers in Australia believe he can be beaten tomorrow. Nine wins in a row since April 11 yet still receiving 2lb from the top-weight? His price of 7-4 almost looks generous!

Australians hanker after another Phar Lap, the hero from the 1930’s who was their between-the-World Wars equivalent of Seabiscuit in the US. After their past-sell-by date cricketers’ performance in the World 20/20 group qualifying match against England, they could do with a modern-day hero, human or equine.

I confess I cannot see him beaten. As to the Breeders’ Cup it would be nice if James Fanshawe could repeat last year’s victory of Audarya and win a second Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar. I have a friend who has an interest.

Siobhan Doolan, highly-talented horsewoman and grand-daughter of Wilf Storey, had earmarked a Fanshawe horse in last week’s sale, the yet to win but lightly-raced four-year-old gelding Going Underground. Like Incentivise he made a slow start to his career, not appearing until late on as a three-year-old in December last year. Sadly, there the similarity ends, but the young lady is very happy with her nice-moving purchase since getting him home.

Siobhan made a discovery about him. Whether it’s correct or not I will try to find out from the horse’s mouth but I won’t ask until next week as James never likes to talk about his horses before they run.

This is the question. Is it true that Going Underground was a galloping companion with Audarya this summer?  Should it be true it would be a nice thought that her £5k buy in a very tough market might have helped a horse win another Breeders’ Cup race. Siobhan will be preparing him in the mornings for his imminent campaign before settling down to her bloodstock insurance work. Good luck Shiv – and grandad of course!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Wishing to be elsewhere…

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I’m getting onto my travel agent (actually I don’t have one any more as I’ve been nowhere for ages) this morning, writes Tony Stafford. I’ll be trying to find the best (and obviously cheapest) way of getting to my new favourite place, Mata’utu, capital of the little-known Wallis and Fortuna Islands.

You didn’t know it was a country? Nor did I till yesterday when hard on the latest lockdown news, I thought it was time to rekindle my spring and summer obsession with Covid-19 and the statistics thereof.

When, two months ago, August in the UK ended with two deaths and September began with three, we all knew that racing’s apparently idiotic continuation with strict separation of limited-allowed owners from their trainers and jockeys had been way over the top. As I’ve said before, I’ve not gone racing since Cheltenham, but why couldn’t you talk in close company to trainers and jockeys when you could meet them in the pub freely before or after the races?

Now we learn that it was precisely because of how draconian it had all seemed that racing now can continue. The situation with owners has yet to be determined but if we don’t want the rest of society to get the hump, maybe it’s best to give that concession. Well done BHA.

Where so recently there were two and three fatalities, two months on it was 274 and 326, a neat average of 300 which is what it has been for the past five alarming days. Pubs, bars and restaurants will be packed until Wednesday and on Saturday the first sightings of the re-emerging toilet-roll hoarders supplanted the usual non-stop flow of trick-or-treaters on Hallowe’en. When I didn’t hear the one knock by would-be recipients of the goodies Mrs S as usual dutifully provided, we were treated with a raw egg thrown on the newly-cleaned front kitchen window for our pains! Messy to clean eggs are [as Yoda might say].

I thought it would be timely, now total cases in the UK have topped the million, so 14,000 per million of population, which is the ninth highest globally, to return to the subject. Deaths have risen above 46,000, fifth behind the US, France, Russia and Mexico.

Propping up the entire table at 218th – although a couple of cruise liners are included – is the above-mentioned Wallis and Fortuna Islands, which between them have recorded one case, the victim of which has happily recovered.

The islands are in the South Pacific, in between such better-known tourist spots as Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, rugby nations whose influence on the game far exceeds the size of their population. Fiji has a team over in Europe at the moment. With only 34 recorded cases in the country it must have been a shock for the tour management to discover that “between five and seven” of their squad due to play an international in Paris with France next week have contracted the virus, so the match is off. Lesson for South Sea islanders: stay home!

I love statistics. With only one now recovered case, Wallis and Gromit – sorry Fortuna – are listed on that same Worldmeters league table as having 90 cases per million of population. I’d be willing to take my chance, as long as they tell me which of the 15,289 souls from the latest census it was that copped it. Maybe he should be required to wear a badge? Not that they are a total island paradise. Even-handed Wikipedia reports that the “main health risks are mosquitos and sunburn, while drunk driving and intoxicated locals can also be a problem”. Thinking twice now, what with my skin cancer!

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It would be tragic if racing stopped again not least because it would deny us another sighting of Saturday’s marvellous Charlie Hall Chase winner Cyrname, who put together the complete three-mile performance when cantering home a couple of lengths ahead of the doughty Vinndication.

Sometimes apparent ease can be deceptive but surely not here as Harry Cobden always looked to be in first gear all the way round two circuits of Wetherby as the rest of them huffed and puffed behind front-running Aye Right. Cobden kept Cyrname wide, possibly giving lip-service to the fact the country’s highest-rated chaser hadn’t previously won going left-handed. As the 1966 World Cup commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme would have said: “He has now!”

Stamina didn’t look a problem around a galloping track and the fences, never the easiest, were treated like the most welcoming of hurdles as he soared over them in perfect union with his jockey. Paul Nicholls ought never again to have to justify Cyrname’s being rated 4lb higher than Altior, and all of a sudden the great recent domination of Irish stables in the staying chaser ranks might well be getting properly challenged. Certainly even if he wasn’t able to stretch himself to three and a quarter miles around Cheltenham in March – and how do they bet whether we can go to see it or not? – Kempton’s King George looks a Christmas gift for Cyrname.

Meanwhile here we are at the start of November and within the next six days we will have got the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday and two days of the Breeders’ Cup in Keeneland, Lexington, Kentucky, out of the way. In other words, all the worthwhile Flat racing of 2020 will have been and gone.

The O’Briens, father and elder son are back down under again, Aidan yet to win it, with 2019 Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck who heads the weights for the 24-runner two-mile handicap, and Tiger Moth, second in the Irish Derby this year and then an easy Group 3 winner thereafter. Joseph, who has won it before, also has two chances with proven stayers Master Of Reality and Twilight Payment.

Anthony Van Dyck will have his supporters after his recent close second to Verry Elleegant in the Caulfield Cup, for which the winner has incurred a 1lb penalty. Considering the first prize was £1,666,667 and the runner-up got £476,190, you could say that was hardly harsh treatment. Incidentally, Prince Of Arran, Charlie Fellows’ regular challenger for Australia’s biggest race, third and then second the last two years, got £114,000 for his fourth in the Caulfield Cup.

Verry Elleegant is some handicapper. This year the five-year-old mare, trained by Chris Waller, has gone to the races nine times, five before the actual end of the season in the Australian autumn. Her two best efforts before the break also earned her big money, each time running second behind William Haggas’s Addeybb and Tom Marquand as they picked up £1million plus prizes each time, at the start of his memorable year, while racing was in its lockdown phase back home.

After Verry Elleegant’s break, four more runs have followed bringing three wins including the Caulfield Cup.  All in Group 1 races, she started with a win over 7f, was then fourth over a mile, before further victories at 10f and a mile and a half. The three wins all came in photo-finishes. There must be a big chance that her toughness will be rewarded by victory in the biggest race of them all for Australians, and it comes at a time when Melbourne, so badly affected by Covid-19 earlier in the year, is celebrating as there have been no new cases anywhere in Australia on Friday and Saturday.

Presumably only insiders will be there rather than the six-figures that usually flock to Flemington  but the magic of getting up at all hours tomorrow morning to see John Berry give his usual virtuoso performance, not just on the big race, but all the supporting contests on the day, is an annual treat I don’t intend missing.

So the main tip is going to be Verry Elleegant and it will be a proper Aussie fairy story if she can do it. It’s always good though to see European trainers taking on the locals by using their training methods.

For years I’ve noticed more than a few horses run just before the big race. In the case of the Andreas Wohler four-year-old Ashrun, a son of Authorized – purchase authorized by Tony Nerses, of course! – he has run twice in the last fortnight, finishing a solid fourth to Steel Prince and ex-Hughie Morrison inmate, Le Don De Vie, in the Geelong Cup (Group 3) before as recently as Saturday coming home on top in another Group 3 at Flemington.

Unlike the brilliant home-trained mare and Anthony Van Dyck, Ashrun has no stamina worries for lasting out the two miles. In August he ran in the 1m7f Prix Kergorlay at Deauville and was a very good second, staying all the way to the line, behind Call The Wind. He gets 2lb extra for his win the other day, but again it will be a lovely story if the local pro-forma works for an invader.

Over the years, it seems, fewer Europeans attempt the costly trip across to the US to challenge for the Breeders’ Cup races and nowadays the dirt has become almost a total no-go. With five juvenile contests on Friday, the likeliest win for the invaders might be the Ballydoyle runner, Battleground, who has been reserved for the Juvenile Turf.

Royal Ascot winner Campanelle will be all the rage for Wesley Ward in either the Juvenile Turf Sprint, where she might meet Lippizanner for Aidan and the team, or the possibly easier-looking Juvenile Fillies’ Turf in which the Roger Varian-trained Nazuna might also be dangerous.

Three of the Saturday races that stick out as possible obvious chances for the travellers are the Mile, the Filly and Mare Turf, and the Turf. They could give us (yes it’s still ‘us’ even if we can’t be there!) three wins. In the F & M T Cayenne Pepper, Peaceful (my pick), and recent rivals Tarnawa and Audarya are a likely team for exotic wagering. In the Mile it’s One Master, Circus Maximus, 2,000 Guineas winner Kameko, and Irish 2,000 hero Siskin for the same bet. O’Brien (AP) and Gosden will line up with two runners each for the Turf, but this time it looks a straight match between Lord North (Gosden) and Aidan’s Magical. It has to be Magical for me and how I wish she could have had another shot at Addeybb after her luckless run at Ascot.

- TS